McCaffery: Eagles won plenty by taking a chance on Vick

PHILADELPHIA — Identify good football players. Acquire good football players. Trust the instinct. Do that, and more often than not, there will be success.

Make that the policy, live with any risks, count the rewards.

Don’t hedge. Act.

The Eagles did that in 2009, causing jaws to fall and stress to rise. Without warning, without even an opening at the position, they signed Michael Vick, who’d recently been imprisoned in connection with a dog-fighting ring.

They did it for plenty of reasons, not all endorsed but ultimately approved by Jeffrey Lurie. They did it to provide depth at quarterback, to add a respected leader, to demonstrate some compassion. They did it knowing there would be protests and threats and season-ticket cancellations, a few at least. Mostly, they did it for the one reason that mattered.

They identified a good football player. They signed him. They trusted their instincts.

Vick, it is almost certain, will not play for the Eagles next season. Though maintaining his option to return as a backup to Nick Foles, he has made it clear that he wants to move into free agency and, at age 33, to try and become a starting NFL quarterback again. He’s good enough. The competition is bad enough. Why not?

But as Vick left the NewsControl Compound Monday, as he signed autographs and shook hands, there was that one leftover question, the one mandatory at the end of any sporting event: Who won?

The Eagles won.

That’s who won.

They didn’t win a championship with Vick. They never win a championship with anybody. But very late in the game, they won their next quarterback. They won Foles, and all of his promise. They won that because of the way Vick behaved after losing his job, the way he kept the clubhouse from splintering, the way he worked with the younger quarterback to make the Eagles a division-championship team again.

“I love Michael Vick,” Chip Kelly said, just before his players scattered, not to be reunited until April. “I mean, that guy is awesome. And I think how he handled a very difficult situation helped Nick’s success. And that’s not any indication of Michael’s non-success.

“I think from what we’ve asked him to do since I got here, he’s done everything. Unfortunately he got hurt, and that gave an opportunity to another guy. Sometimes for a lot of people, you put yourself in those shoes, that’s hard to wrap your arms around. Because it’s not like Michael was wrong and that Michael got benched. It was just a unique situation, and I think how he handled it, how he helped Nick through the process, it just tells you the type of person he is and the type of teammate he is.

“That didn’t go unnoticed by me, and I appreciate everything he did my first year here.”

By the time Kelly arrived and brought him back for one more year, Vick had been professionally cleansed, the protests having quieted. It was Andy Reid — with encouragement from Donovan McNabb and the final OK from Lurie — who took the chance on Vick, and it was the right chance to take.

The Eagles were near the end of the McNabb era and almost found that Vick could still play by accident. Their original plan was for Kevin Kolb to be their next quarterback. But Vick was too gifted and won the job. By 2010, he was in the Pro Bowl. From there, the shorthand is that he was haunted by injuries, was a touch turnover-prone, and was good, not great. And when he suffered a hamstring injury this season, it gave Foles an opportunity. And with Vick’s support, Foles became a Pro Bowl alternate.

Eagles win.

“Michael is somebody who has helped Nick tremendously,” Lurie said. “He has been a joy to have. He has represented the team always with class. I didn’t know a lot about Michael before he came. I had heard a lot. And he has been very impressive.”

Because the Eagles took a chance on one good quarterback, they wound up with another.